At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the eunuch Wei Zhongxian took full power and brutally persecuted the Donglin Party members headed by Jiangnan scholar-bureaucrats. Yang Lian, Zuo Guangdou and other Donglin Party leaders were killed one after another. Wei Zhongxian sent his minions to Suzhou to arrest Zhou Shunchang. Zhou Shunchang was an honest official with high prestige, so when he was arrested, tens of thousands of Suzhou people took to the streets to see him off, and their cries shook the world.

The official shouted arrogantly: "Who is crying for him!" They thought this would scare these weak people. Unexpectedly, the people, who had always been obedient and obedient, were enraged. They swarmed the officers and knocked them to the ground, killing one of them on the spot. The rest of the injured people jumped over the wall and escaped. The Suzhou governor was so frightened that he escaped by hiding in the toilet.

This kind of crazy phenomenon in which individuals show varying degrees of emotional and behavioral loss of control under the infection of touching scenes is called "social infection" in psychology.

This situation can also be seen in life. For example, the audience was watching a performance quietly in a theater. Suddenly, smoke billowed and everyone discovered that there was a fire! All of a sudden everyone was stunned, some people rushed towards the safety exit, and then everyone else immediately followed and squeezed towards the exit. As a result, there were so many people but the door was small, so everyone was blocked at the door. This is a classic example of social contagion. The reasons for these phenomena are social contagion and psychological cues among the masses.

Also, in public places, when we see others stand up, we will stand up ourselves; when we see others applaud, we will also applaud, and even when we see others yawn, we can’t help but yawn. Yawn. French sociologist Gabriel Tarde believes that this originates from imitation between people. One of his famous sayings is: "Society is imitation, and imitation is a kind of somnambulism."

American scholar Edward A. Ross further pointed out that this is actually a series of progressive reinforcement of stimuli and responses. Process: After the masses receive suggestions, they will influence each other; under the mutual influence, some absurd suggestions can incite the masses even more and cause some kind of commotion; and the commotion itself once again strengthens the masses' trust in the suggestions. Under this cycle, the masses tend to become more and more fanatical.

This phenomenon can also be seen in the stock market. Experts who study the speculative psychology of the stock market once proposed a famous "herd theory", which explains the phenomenon of investors buying and selling securities irrationally in line with the general trend, causing the stock market to rise or fall sharply.

Generally speaking, when stimulation occurs, a person's reaction is due to being stimulated by others, and this person's reaction constitutes stimulation to others, and these stimulations will become larger and larger at once. Once strong. When the stock market rose sharply, it aroused people's extreme excitement. Seeing that C and D were buying a large amount of stocks, investors A and B became even more excited and continued to buy. These reactions of A and B became a sign of their reaction to C and D. D's strong stimulation caused C and D to buy more, and the reactions of C and D in turn stimulated A and B. In this way, mutual stimulation was circulated, causing the stock price to rise to an incredible level, and finally triggered a crash.

In fact, not only the stock market, there have been several economic crises in history caused by excessive speculation. For example, the crazy tulip speculation in the Netherlands hundreds of years ago also followed this principle.

There are generally two types of social contagion that cause the masses to rush to imitate. One is emotional contagion, in which an individual's self-control ability decreases and various extreme behaviors are displayed. The second is behavioral contagion, where actions are spread from one person to another. Social contagion is most likely to occur when participants share similar attitudes, interests, and values. Especially in the stadium environment, as a loose and unorganized social community, fans with the same hatred and hatred invariably follow others to act.

When people have opinions on the progress of the game, the results of the game, or the players and referees in the game, dissatisfaction is stirred up and spreads quickly. As long as one person throws something on the field, other fans will also He can throw things, and if he throws them all at once, they will fly downward like a rainstorm. Likewise, impulsive acts of violence can quickly lead to riots in the stadium.

In "Social Contagion." The individual feels that he has lost his personal identity, does not know what he is doing, and engages in behaviors that are inconsistent with internal standards and would never occur under normal circumstances. One of the key factors is the anonymity effect - it is because no one knows your name that you dare to act so boldly and recklessly.